Friday, September 9, 2016

Russian Horde VS Otto Carius

Hello!

So here I'm honoured to present a very first battle report on this blog!

Eastern Poland, year 1944. Soviets hordes are roaming arccos polish fields. They managed to get German retreating forces by surprise and surrounded them. On terrains of small village the battle begins!

So as you can predict our scenario was Surrounded and this was a challenge thrown by Szymon for my German forces - the most difficult scenario to defend against his Soviet hordes - challenge accepted! Both list were made on new ETC point value, so 1625.

Here are our lists:

Soviets (attacker)

German (defender)

We started with placing objectives. Szymon for obvious reasons placed two objectives as far away of each other as it was possible. So both are placed 8" form table edge on each side. This forced me to placed my half of my forces on each side.

I decided to place my Grenadier platoons one on each objective, they only have one Panzerfaust but still CV infantry have chances to defend against bigger tank forces (with a little bit of support). This is also why I placed pak40 near and decided to keep my Tiger tanks hidden behind a hills (and this was a terrible mistake!) - leaving trained 88 in intimidate ambush. My Pumas were divided in two (one on each side of table) where one platoon was placed on the road.

Szymon reaction was simple as simple Soviet hammer can be. He placed all his forces on my weaker flank (on the arses of pak40's) and put only Heavy Katyushas on other side of the table (as it was minimum requirement for this scenario)

As you can see Soviet forces were veeeeeery close to me, and they still had infiltration ability. So SU122 (with tank riders) were now more close to me and I failed to react on infiltration.

********************** Soviet Turn 1

Soviet Hordes moved closer, this is not looking good for Germans...

Remember when I said that my biggest mistake was not putting Tigers in Immediate Ambush? Yeah... not saying that Carius have his ambush ability and I forgot about it completely. In the picture above you can see the exact spot that I missed and exact spot that Szymon find to place his "Cat killers". On my lucky side he needed sixes to hit, but...

Yeah... So two hits on two Tiggers and my save rolls were:

So I saved once (for bail) and second one with failed fire power resulted in second bailed out Tiger.... so much luck...

On other side of a table my pumas failed to disengage and one of them burn hit by SU122. On Center of the table (due to hill there) a bunch of T34 tried to kill my one visible stand on infantry:

And this is only half of dices that Soviet shot this turn.... Fortunatly for me save on 3+ and FP on 6+ resaulted in 0 casualties. But Germans were so heavily pinned down that they started to created new pattern of camouflage on their pants...

**********************German Turn 1

Situation looks bad:

Remember as I said that one Puma platoon started their game on road? And Katyushas were placed alone on one side of the table? Who can miss this chance?

Quick rush and one enemy artillery is down!

But the rest of German Turn was not so successful. Tigers managed to remount after bail. And with 88's placed on hills behind them (together) failed to kill anything in this turn (even with miss re-roll on trained enemy guns) - only two bails on 20+ soviet units... The second kill was on SU122 as my pak40's moved towards them and filed a salvo from field.

**********************Soviet Turn 2

Soviets are moving forward! Killed one Tiger (with von Sacken all storm trooper test were successful and Germans were well hidden, H&C is not helping here for the soviets) and one pak40 (luckily for pak40s facing breakthrough guns). Here the value on Veteran forces is showing the real strength! Single Katyusha failed to kill any of charging Pumas. But losing one of two Tiger's is a heavy blow!

**********************German Turn 2

Pumas went for the kill and after several shot and an assault they roll over the Katiushas!

So time had come for 88's... Under heavy fire both guns are dead, leaving a commander alone and frightened in the middle of the battle field!

Next the assault, however soviets were to confident and tried to assault Grenadiers (without PF support) with only one tank! But this time Soviet Hammer was stopped by German Veterans.

Next assault was rolled by Fearless Soviet Specnaz against dug in Nebelwerfers, they were charging in open terrain and focused defensive fire was enough to stop them.

********************** German Turn 3

Left overs from German defenders focused now their fire on T34 platoon commanded by their Hero. With all guns blazingt and successful assault from hidden forest positions (sneak up on tanks) one Soviet T34 was dead.

Second platoon of Pumas after mad drive down the road managed to cover behind SU122 and fire 2 shots on side of second t34 platoon:

With remaining pak40's and desperate barrage of NW41 second platoon of T34s was also under heavy fire.

And this is is! Heavy casualties forced Soviet forces to test company morale - failed.

**********************Summary **********************

With high luck on both sides (Soviets did not killed tigers in first turn, and Germans rolled bunch of 1's and 2's against trained tanks in the open) we managed to play 3 turns. Hen&Chicks rule was really a struggle for Soviets where Veteran skill and concealment favoured the Germans. This was a close game but in the outcome only two of German platoons were in half strength (and Otto survived), where on Soviet side: 4 platoons were dead, one half strength and one alive.

This time Germans made a successful defence!

I hope you enjoy it! It is our first attempt to write a battle report, so any comment will be appreciated!